


Eight by Thirteen

by RoyHankins



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 07:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29871504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyHankins/pseuds/RoyHankins
Summary: Whatever the Doctor had planned for them, an unexpected stop in Cardiff leads to a strange appearance on the monitor: a second TARDIS, sitting next to theirs.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Charley Pollard
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Eight by Thirteen

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on this super cute picture: https://prydon.tumblr.com/post/181379779476/this-is-my-classicwhosecretsanta-gift-for
> 
> Honestly, I feel like no one will really care about this cute piece of shippy fluff except for me, but screw it, I like it and I'm happy I did it.

“So, where  _ exactly _ are you trying to take us?” Charley Pollard asked, watching as the Doctor moved around the TARDIS’s control console, pulling levers and pushing buttons.

With a quick bark of laughter, the Doctor continued his attempts to steer his time capsule towards whatever destination it was that he had in mind. “Carpasian Five, it’s absolutely wonderful.”

The Doctor said that about a lot of places, Charley found. He was usually right, but nonetheless...

C’rizz entered the console room from his trip to the wardrobe, freshly changed out of the one-piece swimsuit he’d had on before, but clearly still more wet than he would have preferred. “Doctor,  _ please _ tell me it’s drier than the last stop.” The Eutermesan was used to a desert climate, one in a completely separate universe, so Uncle Davey’s Water Park had not been a particularly fun destination for him.

Charley hadn’t minded, though. It was always so interesting, getting to see snippets of the near future. The Edwardian adventuress still boggled at so much of what they saw on their trips.

“Don’t worry, C’rizz!” the Doctor said, grinning in that disarming manner of his. “I learned my lesson, trust me.” After a second, C’rizz smiled and nodded, accepting the Doctor would do his best. “Now, no spoilers, but we should be landing there just...about...now!” He pulled the final lever, the one that dropped them out of the vortex, and the occupants heard the TARDIS’s usual landing noise.

The Doctor went to fetch his coat, eager to leave, while Charley approached the console and looked through the monitor, curious to see what this ‘Carpasian Five’ was like.

She was disappointed immediately. “Doctor, does Carpassian Five look just like that city in Wales you took us to a month ago?”

“Cardiff?” the Doctor asked, confused. “No, in fact it looks almost exactly nothing like Cardiif. Why do you ask?”

Unable to stifle her laughter, Charley turned the monitor to show C’rizz, and loudly explained, “Because it looks like we landed in Cardiff again.” Then, the strangest thing happened. A small warning chime came from a panel near Charley’s right hand, and she saw something incredible on the monitor.

A very familiar looking blue box was sitting a few feet away from the TARDIS. “Um, Doctor?” C’rizz called, sounding nervous. “You might want to come and take a look at this...”

As he approached, the Doctor was mumbling to himself. “Cardiff? Why is it always Cardiff? I’ll have to talk to the old girl about this...” But his train of thought was immediately diverted when he looked at the monitor and saw what had caught their attention: a second TARDIS. “Oh no...” the Doctor said, his voice falling. He started talking in his Serious Doctor Voice. “We’ll have to leave, it’s dangerous for me to cross my own time stream...”

“You mean...that’s you in there?” Charley asked, amazed. Sure, she’d been a time traveler for a while, but the idea of running into themselves was still a novelty. Staring hard at what she could see of the view outside, she noticed, “Wait, hold on...it doesn’t look the same, the size is a little different.”

“And the color isn’t right,” C’rizz added. Of course he’d notice that, Charley thought, since he could change his own colors like a chameleon.

Waving an idle hand while getting back to the controls, the Doctor casually explained, “The TARDIS exterior changes like that infrequently, it just means that’s either me from my past or me from my future. Either way, we need to...”

A loud beep sounded from one of the nearby screens, and Charley looked over and saw what caused the noise. “There’s a message! It says-”

“Please don’t read it Charley, I might not-”

“- _ it says _ , ‘Please read this out loud, Charley, it’s okay for him to hear this.’ You were saying, Doctor?” She couldn’t keep the mirth out of her voice. Had the Doctor just asked for her help in shutting up the Doctor? This was already simply  _ splendid _ . “Let’s see, ‘This event is part of our timestream, so we should be fine. I’m out getting lunch, so come and find me when you’re ready.’ Doctor, what does that mean?”

Turning to look at the Time Lord, Charley saw he had stopped playing with the controls, and instead looked rather excited. “It  _ means _ this is one of the rare times I’ll get to see my future self and remember the experience.” Charley had to wonder about that. Did that mean he also sometimes met other versions of himself and  _ didn’t _ remember it? Then...how would he  _ know _ it had happened? The Doctor so frequently made no sense at all.

The three set out on the town, with the only clue for finding the second Doctor being that they were getting lunch. That wasn’t an enormous help, as according to the Doctor his tastes tended to change with every regeneration.

Eventually, they found a food court, and the Doctor started looking around from store to store, thinking he’d be able to find the other Doctor at first sight. “I can usually tell immediately,” he had explained.

This left Charley and C’rizz to look around a little on their own. They’d just been to this city, close to that time period even, so there wasn’t much fun in exploring. The one big difference from last time was that there hadn’t been a street vendor selling American-style hot dogs, but now there was. Charley was a bit hungry, and a quick pat to her purse confirmed she still had some English pounds, though they might be a bit off-time period. “Fancy some food?” she asked her friend, and he just shrugged and followed her to the line.

There was only one person ahead of them, a woman with hair as blonde as Charley’s, wearing a light blue coat. “Let’s see...do you have any chocolate sauce at least? I  _ love _ ...no? Okay then, I’ll have to settle for what you’ve got.” Something about the animated way the woman was speaking reminded Charley of someone, but at first she was sure she had to have the wrong idea of it.

Then, hot dog in hand, the woman turned around to walk away and froze on the spot.

From the front, the yellow suspenders and rainbow-striped shirt made her look more than a little quirky. But it was as their eyes met that Charley knew.

Those were eyes she could never forget.

The woman dropped her food without even seeming to notice she’d done it, bounding forward as her eyes filled with tears. “Charley!” She scooped Charley into a hug, acting as though she was holding her despite the fact Charley was at least four or five inches taller.

“D-Doctor?” Charley couldn’t believe it, but that was the only thing that made sense.

Woman or not, it was even stranger that the Doctor was hugging her so tightly and weeping into the shoulder of her pink dress. The alien was bombastic, to be sure, but his affection was rarely this unguarded. “Charley, I’ve missed you so much...”

Unsure what to do, Charley ran a hand over the Doctor’s head, hoping that soothed her. “Um, it’s okay Doctor, it’s good to see you too.”

It seemed that did the trick, somehow, and when the Doctor backed out of the hug, she was beaming, though her eyes were still quite watery. Still, she kept one arm around Charley, holding her tight as though afraid she might disappear any moment. “And C’rizz!” she proclaimed, grinning at him as well. “Traveling with you two was wonderful.”

There was a finality to that statement that Charley tried not to think about too much. It was obvious she and C’rizz couldn’t travel with the Doctor forever, but hearing it confirmed so bravenly that their time with him had a discrete end point was still a lot.

The Eutermesan was looking from Charley to the Doctor and back again. “I wasn’t aware that Time Lords could also blend in with the people around them.”

For a second, Charley wasn’t sure what he meant, only to realize that, yes, the Doctor had at some point regenerated into a blonde woman. They didn’t look exactly alike, of course, but the resemblance...

The Doctor was noticing the same thing. “Yes, well,” she said, stretching the vowel sound in a way that made Charley giggle, “I almost never really know where the faces came from, but maybe this one is a tribute to Charley...” Suddenly, her eyes focused on something, and Charley looked to see the other Doctor, her Doctor, was standing twenty feet away, staring at his friends and his future self. “Doctor?” she called out breaking contact with Charley to start walking in his direction.

“Doctor?” he asked, clearly a little unsure, even more so when his future self tackled him in another tight embrace. “Oh, are we hugging each other now? I must have missed the memo.” There was laughter in his voice, but Charley thought he sounded nervous as well.

Words aside, he still hugged her back, though clearly she was the one far more enthusiastic about the whole thing. “ _ You _ get a hug. You  _ deserve _ one.” The younger Doctor laughed a little at that, clearly unsure of what to say, but she kept prattling on regardless. “The planner would get a lecture, the rainbow would get a high-five, and the scarf would get some therapy. But you? Oh,  _ Doctor _ , I don’t know how many times over the years I’ve missed being you.”

She backed away a little, but as Charley and C’rizz approached, she saw there was something sad in the Doctor’s smile. There was something she wasn’t saying, something about what was to come. Perhaps that was always how it was, when time travelers met themselves.

“That may be the case,” the Doctor replied, perking up with some of his usual enthusiasm once more. “But  _ you! _ ” He gestured at her, while she posed. “I can’t believe it finally happened, and you’re just...” His exaltation became a sigh, though nonetheless a happy one. “I look forward to when I can be you.” Then he looked around, confused. “Are you not traveling with companions?”

The Doctor laughed at that, the sound a little snappier than it was with Charley’s Doctor. “Oh, I am. They’re my fam, and I love ‘em. But I remember this meeting when I was you, and they weren’t here, so they’re somewhere else.” The Doctor’s eyes widened, and she turned to look at the ground behind her, clearly aghast. “My hot dog!”

“I’ll buy you another,” Charley promised, walking over to the vendor (who looked very confused by all of this) and bought a few hot dogs. She just hoped he didn’t notice that some of the bills were from the future. One went to C’rizz, one to her Doctor, and one to the new Doctor.

She looked from the food to Charley and back again, and for a second Charley was sure the Doctor was going to burst into tears again. “Charley! Ugh, I love you!”

What.

Charley could not believe she’d just heard that, and it seemed her Doctor agreed. “Um, Doctor? You shouldn’t...”

The older Doctor rounded on her younger self, fiercely. “And why not? I’ll say what I like, Younger Me.” Then, she took the hand not holding a hot dog and took one of Charley’s, interlacing their fingers together.

They all walked together, Charley still hand in hand with the Doctor, her face blushing so brightly that she was sure she looked like a tomato.

The longer the meeting of the Doctors lasted, and the more affectionate this future Doctor was with Charley, the more she kept wondering...

...would her Doctor mind if she snuck off with his future self?


End file.
